You hold the power - always

You hold the power - always. So why work with a therapist if you have everything you need within you?

I recently stumbled across this quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, an Austrain poet.

"Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody.

There is only one way. Go into yourself."

And I felt deep within my solar plexus a real stirring of energy. Not such a strange place to feel a connection, a resonance - after all, the gift of our solar plexus is that of self-empowerment! And this quote speaks strongly to the notion that we hold the power, we have the power to help ourselves ... and the way to do this is to go into yourself. To uncover, rediscover, and reconnect to our own inner resources, wisdom and strength.

If we follow Rilke's logic, nobody can help us, so we just go into ourselves. And yes, I do believe wholeheartedly that we have all the answers we need within us.

But does this make working with therapists redundant?  Why would you need to work with someone if you have everything you need within you?

In my experience as both a therapist and as a long-term client in therapy, absolutely not. In fact, I consider itvital to work with people while you do the deep work of going into yourself. They can act as your cheerleader, your mirror, a guide, and provide an all-important space to reflect and unpick the strands that emerge. Some of what comes up might feel scary or intimidating, and it is always good to know that someone's "got you". Or it may feel horribly complicated, unclear, hazy ... working with someone who has the necessarily skills can help to make sense of things. Things that might otherwise have you going round and round in ever-increasing circles.

And the way I work, for example, is very much the way of a person-centred approach: my focus is on you, not your problems. You are the centre of our time together; you lead. My wish is for you to feel confident in your abilities to cope with whatever life throws at you, for you to feel a greater sense of independence, of resilience, and for you to not always take everything your mind thinks as fact.

There's also something about the "nobody can advise you": that's true, because no-one has walked in your shoes, no-one can possibly know (better than yourself) what is the best course of action to take.

Which is why coaches coach you, rather than tell you what to do. Which is therapists work the way they do, rather than tell you what action to take.

You hold the power - always.

So let's take hypnotherapy as an example: "Oh no, I'm not doing any hypno stuff. I don't want someone else controlling my mind" - I hear this time and time again. And do you know what? That just is not true. I know it because of my own experiences under hypnosis, and I know it because of my working with people under hypnosis.

In hypnotherapy sessions - when you are under hypnosis, in trance - you are always fully in control; because of the wonderful human ability of free will, you are always free to accept, or reject, any suggestions I may offer during our time together while you are in a trance. And being in a trance is just the same feeling as when you take your usual route into work, or to the park, and you suddenly shake yourself and think 'wow, how did I get here?'. Or when you are sitting on a bench on a warm summer's day, and hear the bees buzzing gently behind amongst the hedgerows ... and you come back with a start, realising that your attention has been off on holiday for the last 10 minutes.

And being in that delicious state of trance can really help you to work on stuff that is deep-seated, issues that may be really difficult for you to connect with at a conscious 'thinking' level. So hypnotherapy is a supportive tool that you can use for yourself (with self-hypnosis) to work on these issues, while your therapist (i.e. someone like myself) will use their lifeskills, their training, to support and guide you to better outcomes in a safe, gently-held way.

Coaching (creative arts) sessions are similar in that you can work on deep-seated stuff, maybe even things you had not realised were an issue, or things that have been hidden for the longest time. It could also be something that has been like an irritating fly, buzzing around but you've managed to zone it out until it flies into your awareness zone. Even just 5 minutes of time spent drawing lines on a piece of paper can be so revealing; this, too, is always done at your pace, with you leading the dance.

So it is true. You hold the power - always. But life can be a lonely and tough journey, and we all need companions to be alongside us for parts of our journey, to help ease our way forward and to help guard and lift our luggage whenever we feel we don't have the strength or the ability to do that for ourselves ... and the best companions of all will show you how you had the strength, the ability, to do that even when you didn't believe it yourself.

Isn't that a beautiful thing? To know you aren't alone, yet you hold all the answers you seek within you?

Coaching (Creative Arts)| Hypnotherapy | Mindscaping

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Categories: creative arts, therapy